


ly- 



LAWRENCE COLLEGE 



BY 

SAMUEL PLANTZ 




Reprinted from the Wisconsin Magazine of History 
Volume VI, Number 2, December, 1922 



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HENRY LUMMIS, D.D, 
Professor at Lawrence College, 1886-1905 



LAWRENCE COLLEGE 
Samuel Plantz 
Lawrence College has just passed what President 
Nicholas Murray Butler has called ''one of these invisible 
lines which the imagination draws across the chart of change- 
less time." The seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding 
of an institution of learning is really no more important than 
its seventy-fourth or seventy-sixth, but custom has under- 
scored some of the lines on the chart of time so that they 
stand out in bold relief and are given corresponding signifi- 
cance in our imagination. We, therefore, have our golden 
and our diamond jubilees when we stop to consider the work 
of pioneers and founders, and note the progress and achieve- 
ments of institutions they have established during the 
procession of the years. Lawrence College at its last com- 
mencement, by historical addresses, an elaborate historical 
pageant, and the inevitable banquet with toasts and good 
cheer, celebrated such a milestone— its seventy-fifth birth- 
day. Because of this and doubtless because the work of our 
colleges and universities, although a quiet force not much 
thought about by the masses, is among the most potent m 
molding the sentiments, formulating the ideals, and deter- 
mining the characteristics of our civilization, the writer has 
been asked to prepare this article on the history of one of the 
two earliest institutions of learning in Wisconsin— Lawrence 
and Beloit having come into existence the same year. 

There were various factors or influences which conspired 
together for the founding of Lawrence College. One of these 
was the missionary activities of the Christian church. It has 
been said of the fathers of our nation, "They had hardly 
erected shelters for themselves and for their households 
before they were thinking of a college." The same was true 
of those Christian leaders who came to Wisconsin when it 



4 Samuel Plantz 

was a wilderness to lay the foundations of a Christian com- 
monwealth. Says the Reverend William Sampson, who 
had much to do with the founding of Lawrence : 

It is difficult to estimate the importance of furnishing education 
facihties for the population in a republic like ours where the sovereignty 
is vested in the people and the perpetuity of our civil and rehgious insti- 
tutions depends on virtue and intelligence. 

Again he says : 

For several years before a providential opening seemed to occur for 
commencing such an enterprise in Wisconsin there was a prayerful anxi- 
ety on this subject: several of us had talked the matter over, but could 
fix on no definite plan or location. We concluded that a college for both 
male and female students where each and all should be entitled to equal 
educational advantages was a desideratum. 

In another place in Mr. Sampson's interesting autobi- 
ography, we read that the early preachers were greatly 
interested in what could be done to establish opportunities 
for the education of their children and those of their parish- 
ioners. 

The second influence in the founding of the college was 
the growing belief in the destiny of the great Northwest 
which was beginning to get hold of the mind of the East. 
For a long time many people had little appreciation of the 
West, and especially of Wisconsin. Many said that the 
latter "never would fill up," that ''Illinois had taken all the 
good agricultural land on the south and Michigan all the 
valuable mineral lands on the north," and that "between 
the two were trees and rocks and fish and wild beasts, but 
not much chance for men." But there were others who had 
caught the vision. They, like Henry Clay on the summit of 
the AUeghenies, heard the tramp of coming millions. Among 
these men was Amos A. Lawrence, a graduate of Harvard 
College, who founded two institutions in the West — one at 
Appleton, Wisconsin, and the other at Lawrence, Kansas, 
which has become the university of that state. It was only 
a man of great insight and large patriotism who, when Wis- 
consin was a wilderness, could cast his eye 1200 miles west- 




Lawrence College 5 

ward and think of founding a college in a primeval forest, 
200 miles from a railroad and sixteen miles from a stagecoach 
line. 

The third element is even more interesting, touched as 
it is with the element of romance. Mr. Lawrence would not 
have become interested in Wisconsin but for the fact that, 
due to the encroachment of white men on their ancient home 
in New York, certain tribes of Indians were led to immigrate 
to new lands which had been in part arranged for them by 
the government in the neighborhood of Green Bay. One of 
the principal advocates of this immigration was a man by the 
name of Eleazar Williams, who held the honorable position 
of missionary among them, and who seems to have had 
dreams of founding a new kingdom, similar probably to the 
far famed Iroquois confederacy, he to be its dictator or head. 
Mr. Williams had received an education under the tutorage 
of Nathaniel Ely of Longmeadow, the Reverend Enoch Hale 
of Northampton, and at Dartmouth College. He was in 
1816 sent as a missionary to the Oneida Indians, and had 
such influence among them that within a year the tribe 
sent a memorial to Governor Clinton stating they had aban- 
doned their idols and accepted Christianity, and desired no 
longer to be called pagan. In 1838 President Van Buren 
granted to Mr. Williams a tract of over 5000 acres of land 
located not far from De Pere. Later Mr. Williams made the 
claim of being the lost Dauphin of France, stating he had 
been brought to Canada at the time of his mother's death 
and placed in care of Thomas and Mary Williams, the former 
being a descendant of the famous Eunice Williams of the 
Deerfield massacre. How early Eleazar Williams made this 
claim cannot be determined, but the Reverend Mr. Lathrop, 
who introduced him to Mr. Lawrence in 1845, says the first 
he heard of it was in 1848. However, the fact that Prince de 
Joinville came from France to Green Bay in 1841 and had 
long private interviews with Williams has led many to 



6 Samuel Plantz 

believe that Williams had made earlier claims. Mr. Law- 
rence himself nowhere in his correspondence mentions the 
lost Dauphin story, so that he was doubtless more interested 
in Williams' work as an Episcopal missionary to the Indians 
than in any other fact. His son. Bishop William Lawrence, 
in his biography of his father gives us the following account : 

The pressure of circumstances had brought him [Eleazar Williams] 
to Boston as early as 1845 to raise money on 5,000 acres of land on which 
he lived in Wisconsin. Rev. Dr. Lathrop, whose father was also a mis- 
sionary among the Indians, interested Mr. Amos Lawrence in the mat- 
ter, but on account of his health, the burden of loaning the money was 
taken by his son. The result was that, as the fortune of the lost Dauphin 
waned, Mr. Lawrence was drawn more and more into the investment, 
until he found himself the unwilling possessor of over 5,000 acres of 
land in the Fox River Valley Wisconsin. 

But the incident has an interest as showing that with 
the ownership of property came also a sense of responsi- 
bility for the welfare of those who lived upon it or near it. 
For as soon as the 5000 acres fell into his hand he wrote his 
agent (a Mr. Eastman of Green Bay) : 

I have been thinking of the establishment of an institution of 
learning or college on the Williams land, and there seems to be a good 
opportunity, not only for improving the tone of morals and the standard 
of education in that vicinity, but also of conferring a lasting benefit on a 
portion of our countrymen who most need it. I have a high opinion of the 
adaptation of the principles of Methodism to the people of the West, 
and I think, from all I can learn, that their institutions are carried on 
with more vigor and diffuse more good with the same means than any 
other. It seems to me decided by experience that all literary institutions 
must be controlled by some sect, and efforts to prevent this have often 
blasted their usefulness. I should desire most of all to see a Protestant 
Episcopal institution; but that is out of the question, as our form of 
worship is only adopted slowly and never will be popular in this country. 
I think the old fashioned name "college" or "school" is as good as any: 
"university" would hardly do for so young a child. 

Mr. Eastman conveyed the substance of this communi- 
cation to the Reverend William Sampson, presiding elder 
of the missionary district of Green Bay of the Rock River 
conference, which included the territory south of Green Bay 
to the Illinois line and from Lake Michigan to Wisconsin 
River. He brought the matter to the attention of the Rock 



Lawrence College 7 

River conference at its next session held at Peoria, Illinois. 
The conference committee on education returned Mr. 
Eastman's communication to Mr. Sampson with an instruc- 
tion to get the name of the gentleman who was making the 
proposition — it having been withheld by Mr. Eastman — 
and to open correspondence in order to see what could be 
done. Mr. Eastman for some reason declined to give the 
name, and the matter was dropped. It so happened, how- 
ever, that the Reverend Reeder Smith, a Methodist clergy- 
man, called upon Mr. Lawrence about this time and asked 
for a contribution for a college to be started in Michigan; 
Mr. Lawrence refused on the ground that he was interested 
in starting a college in Wisconsin. Mr. Smith secured the 
right from Mr. Lawrence to attempt to bring his purposes 
to a successful conclusion, and arrived in Fond du Lac the 
last of November or first of December, 1846. He inter- 
viewed Mr. Sampson and the Reverend Henry R. Colman, 
with the result that a notice was given for a meeting of lay- 
men and ministers in Milwaukee to consider Mr. Law- 
rence's proposition, and "quite a number convened the 28th 
of December." Mr. Smith presented Mr. Lawrence's prop- 
osition, which was that he would place in the hands of 
trustees $10,000 to start a college in the neighborhood of 
De Pere, if the Methodist people of the territory would raise 
a like amount. The offer was heartily accepted and a com- 
mittee appointed, consisting of Reeder Smith, George H. 
Day, and Henry R. Colman, to prepare a charter and present 
it to the territorial legislature then in session. Mr. Sampson 
writes in his autobiography : 

I did not reach Madison until the following week. Mr. Smith had 
preceded me and got the charter before the house, and when I arrived 
they told me they designed to kill the bill when it came up again. 
Having friends in both branches, I secured an interest in favor of the 
bill and it finally passed and was signed by Governor Dodge, January 
17, 1847. 

This charter is an interesting document, the original 
copy being in possession of the Appleton Public Library. 



8 Samuel Plantz 

It named the institution "the Lawrence Institute of Wiscon- 
sin": it provided for the "education of youth generally," 
which was understood to mean male and female; it stated 
"the annual income shall not exceed $10,000," showing the 
idea of a college in those early days; it gave the power to 
confer the usual college degrees; it determined that the 
trustees should number thirteen; it said the institution 
should be located "on the Fox River between Lake Kakalin 
and the foot of Winnebago Lake" ; it provided that its works 
should be developed "on a plan sufficiently extensive to 
afford ample facilities to perfect the scholar"; it stated that 
the annual conference of the Methodist church in Wisconsin 
"shall elect also annually by ballot a visiting committee 
consisting of nine whose duty it shall be to attend all exami- 
nations of the institution and look into the condition gener- 
ally," reporting thereon annually to the trustees; and it 
made the following rather remarkable pronouncement, 
considering the sectarian controversies and rivalries of the 
period: "No religious tenet or opinion shall be required for 
the qualification for the office of Trustee except a full belief 
in divine revelation; nor of any student shall any religious 
tenet be required to entitle him to all the privileges of the 
institution; and no particular tenets distinguishing between 
the different denominations shall be required as a qualifica- 
tion for professors in said institution and no student shall 
be required to attend religious exercises with any specific 
denomination, except as specified by the student himself, 
his parents or guardians." This was probably inspired by 
the wishes of Mr. Lawrence, who said: "The school is to be 
under the control of the Methodist denomination though it 
is specified that a large minority of the trustees shall be from 
other denominations. I trust it will be conducted so as to do 
the most good, to diffuse the greatest amount of learning and 
religion, without propagating the tenets of any sect." These 
injunctions and agreements have been strictly adhered to. 



Lawrence College 9 

The charter did not altogether meet the approval of 
Mr. Lawrence, especially the provisions that the income of 
the school should be limited to $10,000 and that the presi- 
dent should be elected by the conference rather than the 
trustees — provisions which were changed at his suggestion 
in a new charter. 

The day after the petition for a charter was offered, 
another petition was filed asking for the granting to Law- 
rence Institute of a portion of the 140,000 acres of land made 
to the territory for university purposes. Mr. Eastman says 
that the matter was poorly handled, and Reeder Smith's 
especial emphasis on the aptness of Methodism to advance 
education "prejudiced the members of other denominations 
and especially the Roman Catholics; and the petition, 
though read three times failed to pass." 

The next important matter was the selection of a loca- 
tion, the charter having stated only that it should be some- 
where between De Pere and Winnebago Rapids. A number 
of sites were offered, one by a Mr. Jones of what is now 
Neenah, consisting of forty acres of land and four stone of 
water power. Mr. Lawrence preferred that the institute 
should be on or near the Williams land, but Mr. Sampson 
seriously objected on the grounds of difficulty of access and 
because the settlers were mainly French and half-breed 
Indians. A committee consisting of Henry R. Colman, 
Reeder Smith, and William Sampson traveled on foot or 
horseback the whole river bank of the lower Fox, and agreed 
upon what was called Grand Chute as the location for the 
new school. The reasons which influenced them are indi- 
cated in letters written to Mr. Lawrence. Thus Reeder 
Smith says: "The river embraces a water power which, in 
my opinion is to be a second Lowell. This spot is to exceed 
in interest any other point on the river. This is one of the 
most enchanting and romantic spots I ever saw." Mr. Col- 
man wrote to Mr. Lawrence : "In beauty of scenery, fertility 



10 Samuel Plantz 

of soil and the opportunity afforded for fine farming country 
around the institute, it exceeds by far any on the river." 
Few viewing Appleton with the banks of the river fined with 
manufacturing plants and the flow of water controlled by 
dams, can realize the primitive beauty of the place as de- 
scribed by various persons who early visited the spot. Thus 
S. R. Thorp of Green Bay, on March 1, 1849, wrote to Mr. 
Sampson : 

Having recently visited Grand Chute on Fox River, it gives me much 
pleasure to send you this brief account. A view of the location confirmed 
the universal testimony of its surpassing salubrity, beauty, and even 
sublimity. The surrounding country is pleasingly undulating on a 
general level. Through this the pure, living waters of Lake Winnebago 
have worn a deep broad channel, with many a graceful curve and abrupt 
sweep. On either side is seen a steep bluff, now receding, now beetling 
and bold, a hundred feet above the dashing flood. Many ravines branch 
out from the river in some of which ripple the modest rivulet. Here too 
are the "sedes recessae" and "leafy dells" of deep and sombre gloom, that 
poets speak of. Over all waves a forest of almost every variety of trees. 
From shore to shore stretches zigzag a rocky brink, over which the rapid 
waters fall four feet and then shoot off down into a quiet basin below. 
Here is water power unsurpassed this side of Niagara; for here the 
largest tributary of all the northern lakes falls thirty feet; and is on the 
line of navigation now being improved from Green Bay to the Missis- 
sippi. 

To the selection of this site for the institute rather than 
the Williams land Mr. Lawrence graciously yielded saying: 
*T shall be gratified, if it is successful and shall take pride 
and pleasure in rendering it assistance, if it be conducted on 
correct principles." 

The location selected and a campus of sixty acres having 
been given by George W. La we of Kaukauna and John F. 
Meade of Green Bay (although the thirty acres donated by 
the latter was never obtained, owing to the machinations 
of one of the supposed friends of the institution), the trustees 
were confronted with the problem of the securing of funds 
to match Mr. Lawrence's conditional offer of $10,000 and 
also to erect the first building. The scarcity of the popula- 
tion and the poverty of the pioneers made this a large under- 




Lawrence College 11 

taking which could never have been accompHshed but for 
the faith, enthusiasm, and self-sacrifice of the missionary 
preachers. Writing from memory, the daughter of one of 
these preachers has left us the following account: 

They gathered at my father's home at Oshkosh, for my father, 
S. M. Stone, was a preacher in charge of the Winnebago circuit which 
embraced the whole county. There on the lake shore in a log parsonage, 
ten by twelve feet were its dimensions, those noble, self-sacrificing men 
planned for the institution before there was a tree cut in Appleton, and 
not only planned but divided their little store to start the wheel rolling. 
My father at that time gave $100 which was a fifth of all his earthly pos- 
sessions, and the rest did likewise. 

The Reverend William Sampson, who had more to do 
with starting the enterprise than anyone else, makes this 
statement in his autobiography: 

I spent many a sleepless night in planning to meet the exigencies of 
the hour. In order to carry forward the work I found it necessary to 
dispose of my property in the city of Fond du Lac where I owned a 
dwelling, two lots and thirty acres of land, also one hundred and twenty 
of timber lands two miles north on the west side of the lake. As money 
was close I had to sell at a great sacrifice, but risked all, reputation and 
property on the success of Lawrence University. 

A little later Honorable Mason C. Darling, who was the 
first president of the Board of Trustees, mortgaged his 
property for $3,000, taking some pledges for scholarships as 
security. The first subscription paper is in the vault of the 
college. It reads : ^^ Notice to the Benefactors of Our Country — 
The Lawrence Institute is to include a preparatory and 
Teacher's department, under the same charter, according 
gratuitous advantages to both sexes of Germans and 
Indians." Then follows a long statement about the beauty 
of the location and the purposes of the institution. Among 
the subscribers' names are those of Governor Seymour of 
New York, Governor Stone of Connecticut, and Governor 
Harris of Rhode Island. About this time Samuel Appleton 
of Boston, through the solicitation of Mr. Lawrence, gave 
$10,000, the interest on which was to be used as a library 
fund. In consideration of this gift, it was decided to change 



12 Samuel Plantz 

the name Grand Chute to Appleton. The plan of raising 
funds was to sell scholarships for $50, which would entitle 
the owners to free tuition for ten years. Later these scholar- 
ships were sold for $100 and made perpetual. Nearly 1200 
of these scholarships were sold in the early days, and it is 
needless to say came very nearly exterminating the institu- 
tion. They were later bought up and so the situation was 
saved. 

At the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees held in 
Fond du Lac, August 9, 1848, it was announced that suffi- 
cient money had been secured to meet Mr. Lawrence's 
conditions and to begin the enterprise. The Reverend 
William Sampson was elected principal, and he and the 
Reverend Reeder Smith, elected "agent," were authorized 
to begin the erection of the first building, with the expectation 
that it would be opened the following November. Mr. 
Sampson gives us the following interesting account of his 
first activities as principal : 

I arranged matters at home, packed miy trunk and the 7th of 
Sept. 1848 left for the scene of operations. I took the steamer Man- 
chester the same they used to draw over the sand bar at Taychedah 
with a yoke of stags, arrived at Neenah about noon, secured a passage 
alone in an Indian dugout to the Grand Chute and took lodgings in a 
shanty hotel about a mile south of west from the present court house, 
kept by Mr. Thurber, the nearest house to the place of business. On the 
8th of Sept. I began to cut away the thick underbrush and soon had a 
road cleared from the old Indian trail on the river bank to the block on 
which Mr. Brewster's beautiful residence now stands. I cleared off 
the brush and the necessary preparations were made for the erection of 
the building in the center of that block. Col. Blood soon had a bill of 
timber as per agent's order, cut a road through the dense forest to Duck 
Creek, where the agent had engaged the lumber, employed teams and 
soon was doing "Land Office" business. A towering pile of lumber was 
on the ground. The agent had let the contract of putting up the building 
to Wm. H. McGregan of Sheboygan and he sent John P. Parish and 
Mr. Blake who came in Oct. or Nov. with their families, erected shanties 
and went to work. 

It is a tradition that on one occasion the workmen were 

driven from their task by wolves which attacked them. The 

building was four stories in height, and was seventy feet 






Lawrence College 13 

long by thirty feet wide. The first story was of stone and 
the others of wood, a cupola topping the structure. It was to 
serve for chapel, recitation, and dormitory purposes. 

With the erection of the building, settlers came pouring 
in so that when it was completed, November, 1849, there 
were in Appleton the beginnings of a village. The institute 
was opened with due ceremonies on September 12, 1849, 
"with Rev. Wm. Sampson as principal, R. O. Kellogg, A.B. 
Professor of Languages, James M. Phinney, Professor of 
Mathematics, and Miss Emilie M. Crocker, Preceptress and 
Teacher of Music." The price of tuition was three dollars 
for the term of eleven weeks in the elementary English 
branches, four dollars in the higher English branches, and 
five dollars in languages, mathematics, and the natural and 
moral sciences. On the first day thirty -five enrolled, by the 
eighth of December the number had increased to sixty, and 
by Christmas time there were seventy-five. About this time 
the Reverend Henry R. Colman, on account of failing voice, 
resigned the pastorate and became steward. His son, the 
Reverend Henry Colman, D.D., now residing in Milwaukee, 
came with him to enter the school, and thus describes the 
situation : 

My father unable to preach from a broken voice became steward 
and boarded teachers and students for $1.50 per week, including bed- 
linen, while the institution threw in the room rent. I rang the bell, 
made fire for morning prayers at six, when Professor Kellogg came down 
with his tallow dip, read and shivered, shivered and prayed, while the 
students sat around wrapped in long shawls or big overcoats, which 
covered a multitude of negligencies. 

It has previously been stated that the charter and first 
subscription paper made it clear that the school was to 
furnish equal opportunities to male and female students. 
Mr. Lawrence was not especially pleased with this venture, 
but did not oppose it. It was remarked that when he visited 
the school some years later and addressed the students, he 
ignored the girls' side of the chapel and spoke directly to the 



14 Samuel Plantz 

boys. Seventy -five years ago there was little sentiment in 
behalf of the higher education of women, and only Oberlin 
College had attempted it on a strict equality. It is inter- 
esting to note that as early as 1849 the doors of this school 
established in a wilderness threw its doors wide open to both 
sexes. At the fiftieth anniversary Dr. Henry Colman, in 
his historical address, said: 

Here women as well as men have boasted with Emerson: 

"I am owner of the sphere, 

Of the seven stars and the solar year, 

Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain. 

Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain." 
But while the boys and girls recited together and had equal opportuni- 
ties, there was an outward show of separating them into a men's and 
women's department, and at graduation they had separate exhibitions 
and received their diplomas separately, because as some one remarked, 
"Pres. Cook did not want it known in the East he was at the head of a 
co-educational school." 

As there were no students who were prepared for college, 
the institute — the title of which was changed in 1849, by 
act of the legislature, to university, contrary to the desires 
of Mr. Lawrence, who wanted the term "college" — ^had to 
begin with elementary work. The course of study when 
compared with that of the modern high school is most 
interesting, and would put the present-day high school lad 
on his mettle. 

FIRST YEAR 

First and second quarters : Latin, natural philosophy, chemistry 
Third and fourth quarters : Latin, Greek, geology, botany 

SECOND TEAR 

First and second quarters : Latin, Greek, algebra 
Third and fourth quarters : Latin, Greek, geometry 

THIRD TEAR 

First quarter: Latin, Greek, algebra, mental philosophy 
Second quarter: Latin, Greek, algebra, moral science 
Third quarter: Latin, Greek, rhetoric, political economy 
Fourth quarter: Greek, elements of criticism, logic 

The course for the girls was the same except that French 
was substituted for Greek, with the privilege of taking Greek 



^i^Kjl 



Lawrence College 15 

if desired. It is at least worthy of consideration, whether 
students who went through this course seventy-five years 
ago did not have a better mental development and greater 
power of thought than those who come out of our secondary 
schools today. 

As a study in educational progress, it may be worth 
while to consider briefly the discipline these students of 
seventy-five years ago were under as compared with the 
college students of today. The catalogue says: 

In the government of the school the faculty while strict, firm, and 
watchful will endeavor to secure not only the improvement of the stu- 
dents but their happiness, and to induce in them such habits as become 
ladies and gentlemen among which habits are appreciation, punctuality, 
and politeness. 

We shall not give all the rules, but for brevity the more 
striking : 

During the hours of study no student shall be unnecessarily absent 
from his room, or leave the institution's premises, or visit the room of a 
fellow student without permission of one of the officers. 

At no time and in no case shall clamorous noise, athletic exercises, 
smoking tobacco in seminary buildings, be allowed : nor shall the use of 
profane or obscene language, intoxicating drinks, playing games of 
chance or indulging in indecorous conduct be allowed in the seminary 
buildings or elsewhere. 

A strict observance of the Sabbath will be required of all students. 
On no account may they go abroad into the fields, frequent the village, or 
collect at each other's rooms without permission from the proper officers. 
Sobriety and silence must be observed throughout the Sabbath. Attend- 
ance at church morning and afternoons is required. 

No student may attend mixed assemblages or parties of any kmd; 
nor may any gentleman or lady ride or walk together without express 
permission. 

If any male student have a relative in the female department whom 
he wishes to see he can go to the steward's room and there converse 
with her. 

Weekly exercises in declamation and composition were 
required of the gentlemen, but composition only was 
required of the ladies. On alternate Saturdays exercises of a 
literary nature were carried on by the students. Orations 
and declamations were given and the school newspapers 



16 Samuel Plantz 

were read. Debating became the main interest of the men, 
and a debating society was formed the first year of the 
school. 

As the first college class was to be formed in 1853, it 
was thought best to elect a president, and September 1, 
1852, the Reverend Edward Cook, D.D., of Boston, was 
chosen. One of his pupils thus writes concerning him : 

He brought to Lawrence University, in aid of his presidency, a 
thorough, highly finished, classical education, with rarely equalled 
polished manners and ways, all supplemented by 18 years experience in 
eastern seminaries and in pastorates in Charlestown and Boston. He 
was neat to a fault in attire, his face clean shaven. His learning was 
measured and dignified to a degree. He was faultless in speech, meas- 
ured by a synthesis and distinctness of enunciation, that rendered him 
an elegant, cultivated and most interesting conversationalist and 
speaker. His lectures, orations and sermons were replete with eloquence 
and grace and were of a high order. He walked with measured gait, 
always with a cane, in true colonial style. 

It must have been something of an undertaking for this 
polished scholar with his silk hat and cane to adjust himself 
to this 'Vilderness school," but he seems to have accom- 
plished it, and to have left a deep impression on his students. 

It was during the presidency of Dr. Cook that what is 
now known as Recitation Hall was erected. At the time it 
was dedicated, 1853, it was by far the finest building in the 
state. The Milwaukee Sentinel, speaking of it in 1856, 
says : "This building is the largest and best of its kind in the 
West." Dr. Alfred Brunson in his dedicatory address was 
even more extravagant and said, as a college building "it 
will compare favorably with any similar one in the United 
States, if not in the world." President Cook collected about 
him a most able faculty and the college won a fine reputation 
for scholastic work, but he was not a financier and the school 
went behind each year, until in despair of bringing it through 
financially he resigned. He was succeeded by Dr. Russell Z. 
Mason, who was connected with the college as professor of 
natural science, and was regarded as the man who could lift 



% 




LAWRENCE INSTITUTE 

First building, erected 1848-49 




MAIN HALL, LAWRENCE COLLEGE 

Second building, erected 1852-53 



Lawrence College 17 

it from bankruptcy to prosperity. The trustees strictly 
enjoined him not to run the institution further in debt. 
Soon after his election he went to Boston, where Governor 
Lee Claflin and Mr. Lawrence gave him $10,000 each. 
Besides these gifts he raised $20,000 to clear off the indebted- 
ness on the school. President Mason was not simply a 
financier. He was a scholar and a man of noble character 
and of great influence over his students. He tells, in a brief 
statement of his presidency, that when he assumed charge 
there were between 300 and 400 students, and that the 
endowment fund of $50,000 had been entirely consumed in 
running the college. 

It was during President Mason's administration that the 
Civil War broke out. He makes this interesting statement 
about it: 

The guns were leveled, and fired on Fort Sumter. The country was 
alarmed but resolved. Lawrence University was not slow to declare 
itself for the Union. A war meeting was called to meet in the college 
chapel. I was called to the chair; though not strictly according to my 
ecclesiastical training and relations, I claim the honor of making the 
first war speech that was made in the community, if not in the state. 
There were other speeches made that evening by Dr. Davis, Prof. 
Phinney, Prof. Pomeroy. These speeches all bore fruit. Enlistments 
were numerous. Prof. Pletschke and Prof. Pomeroy both enlisted that 
evening and both raised companies and later died in the army. . . . 
In every subsequent call of Pres. Lincoln for volunteers some of our 
young men enlisted. I think in one case an entire class, which if I 
remember rightly was the class which would have graduated in 1864. 
... I think I run no risk of a failure when I challenge any similar 
institution in the country to show a greater per cent of its pupils and 
graduates and faculty who responded to the call for men in the procla- 
mations of President Lincoln and Governor Randall. 

He goes on to speak of the addresses in the college, of the 
Honorable Fred Douglass, the Reverend Henry Ward 
Beecher, and Bishop Matthew Simpson — all among the 
greatest orators of their day, who made a great impression 
and received a large response. 

Much could be said of the service of Lawrence College 
in the war, but it will be suflScient to quote the following 
sentence from one of the speeches of Colonel J. A. Watrous: 



18 Samuel Plantz 

Lawrence University has no occasion to blush for the part her sons 
played in the great war. She furnished hundreds of men who stood in 
that proud, steadfast wall of blue and performed the duties of private 
soldiers : she furnished many company commanders : she furnished men 
who commanded regiments: she furnished an adjutant general for the 
Iron Brigade: she furnished stafiP officers and chaplains: and I do not 
recall one of her sons who came out of the army with a tarnished reputa- 
tion or a record for inefficiency. 

President Mason resigned the presidency in 1865, and 
Dr. George M. Steele of Massachusetts was elected to fill 
the vacancy. Dr. Steele was a man with a leonine head, a 
deep voice, an abundant humor, a rugged personality; he 
was also a good scholar. For fourteen years he was one of 
the foremost citizens in Wisconsin, a public speaker much 
sought after, and a natural leader of men. He wrote for the 
North American and other magazines, and published books 
on political science and other subjects. At one time he ran 
for Congress. He pursued the policy as an administrator of 
cutting the garment to the cloth, so that there was no 
marked development in the institution. During what is 
known as the Methodist Centenary Movement for Educa- 
tion, something more than $50,000 was secured for endow- 
ment. The greatest mistake of Dr. Steele's administration 
was the sale of twenty acres of the college campus — a 
failure to appreciate the future needs of the institution 
which it is diflScult to understand, but which was induced 
by the poverty of the school and the great demand for 
funds. The real importance of Dr. Steele and the largest 
success of his administration are found in the great influence 
of his personality upon his students. Dr. Olin A. Curtis, 
for many years professor of systematic theology at Boston 
University and later at Drew Theological Seminary, and 
author of one of the best books on theology written by an 
American in recent years, says: "In twelve years of student 
life, in four countries, I have had twenty-eight teachers. 
But I have not the least hesitancy in saying George M. 
Steele was the greatest teacher of them all. . . . He could 



Lawrence College 19 

create for a student a new world. . . . His class-room was 
a place of large horizons." This is high praise from a man 
who had studied with Borden P. Bowne in this country and 
with Dorner and Luthardt in Germany. After being fourteen 
years with the college, Dr. Steele resigned, tired of the 
financial struggle. 

For four years Dr. E. D. Huntley, known as a lecturer 
and preacher, chaplain for a time of the United States Senate 
and pastor of Metropolitan Church, Washington, was 
president. He was an orator but not a scholar. He was 
elected largely because of his ability to raise money, and in 
this he succeeded, securing a legacy of $50,000 from Charles 
Paine of Oshkosh and other smaller sums from many sources. 
During his administration the president's home was built 
and the Y. M. C. A. organized. Dr. Huntley's health broke 
down under the strain and he resigned. 

The successor to President Huntley was a graduate of 
Lawrence — Dr. Bradford P. Raymond, a fine scholar, edu- 
cated in this country and Germany, and a man of admirable 
personal qualities. He was a great preacher, and published 
articles and books of value. He found the task of raising 
money tedious, but was at home in the class room. He was 
also a fine administrator, winning students by their confi- 
dence in him and by his justice and sincerity. He did much 
to expand the curriculum, introduced elective studies, and 
brought to the college that great scholar and teacher Dr. 
Henry Lummis, who for breadth of learning, inspirational 
power in the class room, intellectual keenness, and debating 
power was probably the equal of any man who has taught 
in Wisconsin. For twenty years this man of encyclopedic 
learning and of gracious personality taught at Lawrence and 
gave new impulses to scores of young lives. The second 
building of importance was erected in President Raymond's 
time — Ormsby Hall, a dormitory for women, being built 
in 1888. The next year he was called to the presidency of 



20 Samuel Plantz 

Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, over 
which he successfully presided for twenty -five years. 

Dr. Raymond was succeeded by Dr. Charles W. Gal- 
lagher, who did much to bring the college before the people 
of Wisconsin and who raised considerable money, most of it 
never being realized by the college, owing to the failure of 
two contributors who gave $25,000 each but were unable to 
meet the obligations they had assumed. It was at this 
time that Underwood Observatory was built and equipped. 
After four years of service Dr. Gallagher handed in his 
resignation. He was succeeded by President Samuel 
Plantz, the present incumbent. 

During the past twenty-eight years Lawrence has had a 
steady development. Its plant has been increased by erec- 
tion or purchase until it now has fifteen buildings. Its 
equipment has also been greatly extended. The library 
of 8000 volumes has now over 41,000. A museum has been 
built up which is one of the largest collections owned by any 
institution of college rank in the country. The 53 courses of 
study in the college have increased to 293. The endowment 
of less than $100,000 has grown to nearly $2,000,000. The 
faculty of 9 persons is now 63, and the student attendance 
in the college department, which was 83 in 1895, was the 
last year 870. The college has developed a strong conser- 
vatory of music, but has dropped the academy, the business 
college, the school of expression, the school of art, etc., which 
it had when President Plantz assumed control. Its total 
attendance in college and conservatory last year was 1287. 
The college has property, plant and endowment, now valued 
at nearly three and a half million. It has various honorary 
organizations, like Phi Beta Kappa; the American Associa- 
tion of University Women; Tau Kappa Alpha, an honorary 
debating and oratory fraternity; Pi Delta Epsilon and Theta 
Sigma Pi, honorary journahstic fraternities. It also has 
thirteen social fraternities and sororities. The college has 



Lawrence College 21 

come to be recognized as one of the strongest in the Middle 
West and as maintaining high scholastic standards. 

In closing this account of the history of Lawrence Col- 
lege, in which a wealth of material has been omitted because 
of the necessary brevity, a word should be added about the 
influence of the college on the state and nation. Nearly 
14,000 young people have studied for a longer or shorter 
period at Lawrence. Of this number fully 3000 have taught 
for a time in the schools of the state. Nearly 400 have 
become lawyers, over 350 clergymen, more than 200 physi- 
cians and dentists, 80 editors, and many more are inventors, 
engineers, business men, keepers of homes, and representa- 
tives of various occupations and callings. Lawrence has 
graduated United States senators, congressmen, governors, 
judges of circuit and supreme courts, members of legisla- 
tures, college presidents, artists, authors, scientists, and men 
high in the councils of the church. It has sent about 50 
missionaries to various parts of the earth. It has graduates 
who are teaching in more than a dozen of the largest univer- 
sities from Harvard down. No one can estimate the diam- 
eter of its influence. It is not a private institution, but 
belongs to the state and nation. In the last war it had over 
500 of its students, graduates, and teachers in the service. 
It seeks to maintain the highest Christian ideals, to mold 
character as well as impart knowledge, and to stand for 
those principles in our civilization which are the basis of its 
progress and security. The location of the college makes it 
certain that its growth will steadily continue, and that its 
service to society will be multiplied with the flight of the 
years. It has just celebrated its seventy-fifth birthday, but 
is still only in its youth, and the period of its largest service 
to humanity is yet ahead. 



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